Do-It-Yourself Skin Care Tips

Don't have time for intensive skin care? Prepare yourself with the basic skin treatment. Good skin care and healthy lifestyle choices can help delay the natural aging process and prevent various skin problems. Make sure you get easy-free-DIY skin treatment with these five useful tips:

1. Protect yourself from the sun

One of the most important ways to take care of your skin is to protect it from the sun. A long-time sun exposure can cause wrinkles, age spots and other skin problems, as well as the increasing risk of skin cancer.

For more protection, follow these tips:

Use sunscreen. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15. When you're outdoors, reapply sunscreen every two hours — or more often if you're tanning, swimming or perspiring.

Seek for a shade. Avoid the sun between 10am and 2pm, when the sun's rays are strongest.

Wear protective clothing. Cover your skin with tightly woven long-sleeved shirts, long pants and wide-brimmed hats. Also consider laundry additives, which give clothing an additional layer of ultraviolet protection for a certain number of washings, or special sun-protective clothing — which is specifically designed to block ultraviolet rays.

2. Don't smoke

Smoking makes your skin look older and contributes to wrinkles. Smoking narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outermost layers of the skin, which decreases blood flow. This depletes the skin of oxygen and nutrients that are important to skin health. Smoking also damages collagen and elastin, the fibers that give your skin its strength and elasticity. In addition, the repetitive facial expressions you make when smoking, such as pursing your lips when inhaling and squinting your eyes to keep out smoke, can contribute to wrinkles.

If you smoke, the best way to protect your skin is to quit. Ask your doctor for tips or treatments to help you stop smoking.

3. Treat your skin gently

Daily cleansing and shaving can nurturing your skin.

Limit bath time. Hot water and long showers or baths remove oils from your skin. Limit your bath or shower time, and use warm — rather than hot — water.

Shave carefully. To protect and lubricate your skin, apply shaving cream, lotion or gel before shaving. For the closest shave, use a clean, sharp razor. Shave in the direction the hair grows, not against it.

Pat dry. After washing or bathing, gently pat or blot your skin with a clean towel so that some moisture remains on your skin.

Moisturize dry skin. If your skin is very dry, use a moisturizer that fits your skin type. For daily use, consider a moisturizer that contains SPF.

4. Eat a healthy diet

A healthy diet can help you look and feel your best. Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and proteins. The association between diet and acne isn't clear. However, some research suggests that a diet rich in vitamin C and low in unhealthy fats and processed or refined carbohydrates might promote younger looking skin.

5. Manage stress

Uncontrolled stress can make your skin more sensitive and trigger acne breakouts and other skin problems. To encourage healthy skin and a healthy state of mind, take steps to manage your stress. Yoga, meditation, listening music, jogging, or pilates might be some of the best options to relax your mind. Set a number of reasonable limits, scale back your to-do list and make time to do the things you enjoy. The results might be more dramatic than you expect.

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